Hyundai, a South Korean automaker that has enjoyed a steady stream of successes lately in the international automotive market, introduced the Palisade mid-size three-row crossover SUV in late 2018 as its flagship high-riding nameplate.
The company started life as an affordable Asian carmaker that cared little for the styling of its cars and more about establishing a name as a cheap and reliable day-to-day partner. That is all in the past, although Hyundai models are still relatively affordable and reliable – now they put a big emphasis on the design part and are not afraid to innovate.
For example, just look at the all-new Kona series or the refreshed Tucson if you need CUV examples. Passenger cars are also out there keeping the styling banner up, including the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 or the Elantra facelift. Of course, the threshold needs to be kept high by the flagship models, and the Palisade sure acts like the king of the hill, even if the electrified models are much costlier than its $36,400 starting price for the 2024 model year.
As such, perhaps it's time the heir of the Sant Fe XL took the reigns once more. Although it was recently upgraded and refreshed by Hyundai, many people expect the second generation to appear sooner rather than later for the 2025 or 2026 model year. Even the imaginative realm of digital car content creators has the same opinion, as exemplified by Vince Burlapp (aka vburlapp on social media), who is a prolific virtual artist who loves to dream of all the latest models across the wide-ranging automotive realm.
Recently, he imagined that the next-gen Cadillac XT5 might come directly from China and probably felt the sweeping lines were insufficient. As such, next up, he dreamed about the second-gen Hyundai Palisade with more luxurious lines that would shame any premium automaker's CUV. Unfortunately, the pixel master only provides a singular CGI point of view, so we can't judge its merits 100%.
Alas, that doesn't mean we can't speculate – just like the good folks over at the Car Release TV channel on YouTube have done based on this speculative rendering. As far as we are concerned, the next Palisade needs to move in a different direction from the all-new MX5 Santa Fe because the latter has become much boxier and rugged than before. If the Palisade also turned out like this, they would risk overlapping and cannibalization.
As such, the only way forward for the bigger Palisade is probably up the premium scale and into a world of sweeping designs. The pixel master still keeps the most recognizable elements, though – such as the massive radiator grille, the split headlight styling, and the arching C pillar. Cool, or not?
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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